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Brooklyn Nine-Nine 1×11 “Christmas” Recap

By Tim O’Halloran

Christmas time for the Nine-Nine is here and in a surprising, but very B99 move, the holiday took a back seat to a more traditional story… or did it?
The episode focused around the entire precinct coming together to help each other, and really, isn’t that what the holidays are all about? Coming together to celebrate how weird we all are. Very sneaky, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, making me feel stuff.

The episode started off with what I’m going to go ahead and call one of the greatest cold opens in the show’s soon to be long and storied history. Two Santas fighting, and then two cops fighting two Santas, all because neither could chose whose charity should get the corner. Comedy gold.

So, this week’s episode centered around some death threats against Captain Holt. This means that Holt has to have a security detail at all times. He chooses Jake for this job, who couldn’t be more giddy at the fact that he gets to be in complete control of the Captain for at least one day.

Boyle is getting ready to leave for a singles cruise because he has finally given in to the fact that he’s never going to get with Rosa. It’s a great little turn in that story line. I know I sometimes complain about them not making moves like this sooner, but when they do, they do it well. As for Terry, he has his psych evaluation and it is the last piece of the puzzle before he finally gets released back onto field duty.

The Captain tries to shake Jake, but Jake tracks him down and tells him that he’ll let him go to his mom’s house to do work. When they get there, Holt slowly realizes that he has been brought to a safe house. He tries to make a break for it but Jake handcuffs himself to Holt and throws the key down the vent.

Amy is working on the precinct Christmas card. She can’t get a good picture of Rosa because she is constantly frowning. Even Gina’s fantastic photo-shop skills can’t fix it.

Back at the safe house, Holt texts his husband that he’s going to be late. When there is a knock at the door, it’s actually Boyle. Turns out the Captain really thinks the threats are real and not fake like he’d been claiming. Jake and Holt try and play Boyle so they do what either of them says, but Boyle can’t decide and ends up handcuffing himself to Holt and subsequently throwing away his key.

Terry is bombing his psych eval. He’s popped a pillow, and every word association ends with “gun, die!” Needless to say it’s not going great.

Jake finally convinces Holt to let the precinct help them catch “Freestyle” Haims, the man that Holt taunted after arresting him. They track him down and the precinct goes after him. Jake actually used many of the lessons he’s picked up from Holt to keep him safe.

They track him down and Jake and Holt get held up by Haims. But then, to save the day, TERRY! Gina came in and played to Terry’s innate desire to protect people which finally got him out in the field. We also see that Boyle dove in front of Rosa and took two shots, one to each butt-cheek. The episode ends with them huddled around Boyle and his wounded glutes. (I’m little surprised no one made a yule log joke.)

This episode was really solid. It played up the true elements of a holiday without the episode/story being entirely about the holiday itself. Everyone came together to help each other out, and in the end they all ended up happy. Amy even got her snapshot of Rosa smiling!

Memorable Quotes

“Psychologists are just people who weren’t smart enough to be psychics”